Changing my life. Pt. 2

I've been in bad health for the majority of my life, because of lack of exercise, bad eating habits as well as a lack of proper medication. I've also become very anti-social, in part because of my bad health. There has also been a complete lack of direction in my life for a long time.

Since that time I've put some effort into learning how to create a proper diet and roughly what a realistic and healthy eating schedule actually consists of. In an effort to fight my obesity, I've sworn off all candy, ice cream, sodas, anything that is overly sugary or fatty. So far there were a few times I slipped, and ate more than I should have, or went for some sweets. One of my eating habits that is truly detrimental to my progress is the tendency to just eat a big plate of food quickly, then be sedentary. Since I realized this, forcing myself to just grab one bite with my utensil, put the utensil down, chew it, wait a moment and then start again has been my routine. It tends to make me feel full faster, which is quite a boon in my position. It's weird that the way you've eaten your whole life is terrible and needs modification. Slowly but surely I'm breaking the habit though.

As far as my total lack of exercise goes, I've managed to find something that I'm capable of doing and been sticking with it. As foreign of a concept as it is to me, Billy Blanks' TaeBo workouts are something I can do, and have been doing twice a week. It wrecks me to be honest. The first few times were terrible, but I was determined to fight through it to the finish. The only thing that rickets gives me a hard time with is the running in place, and general range of motion. Hopefully the latter will go with time, but not totally I'm sure. Other than that, walking regularly helps me stay active. The boost you can get from exercising is really exhilarating. It's even helped me maintain higher focus in StarCraft.

Food stamps so far have been crucial to me creating a workable system for getting into shape. State-funded medical assistance is another thing I've managed to register for. As soon as the card comes in, I plan to talk to a doctor about the eating schedule, exercise and see what I can do about getting the medications I need for rickets.

One thing I continue to fail at is keeping my room clean. The dishes and random trash seem to just keep piling up. It's sort of the same as the meal habit, just setting things aside and then not thinking about them feels natural. After I'm done writing this, I'll tape a piece of paper to my door that says, "Grab some dishes dude." Do you have any ideas for this?

Moderating my amount of time spent playing games has been one of the hardest things to do so far. I've realized it's essentially my escape from dealing with the reality of all the problems I have in front of me. It's been the same process since I got my first computer, and my mom was too busy being high on meth to regulate my gaming time. It's a strange thing, for it to be normal to blaze through numerous sources of stimuli, over and over again in an attempt to forget yourself. A 2 hour limit on gaming has stuck so far, and I spend the rest of that time bettering myself in some regard.

So far I haven't been able to find any work, but to be honest there isn't a lot around here. It's a pretty small community, around 1500 population. I've been brainstorming ideas. For one, I'm a relatively proficient guitarist. Lessons pay fairly well so I'm thinking about printing up some flyers. There are some other things higher on the list though.

The plan for fixing my social problems rests with my college idea. The few people here that are my age I can't connect with. They all care about partying, and most can't hold an interesting conversation for more than a minute. If I lived in a city I'd just seek out new people, but my town's population is only 1500. There also aren't a lot of places to go just to meet people like there might be in a more densely populated area. College will have a ton of people around my age that I'll hopefully be able to connect with to form valuable relationships. Really, really looking forward to this.

My mother has also begun smoking meth again, and I'm not really sure how to deal with it. I came up with every reasonable argument I could for her to quit and she persists. It seems she has zero motivation to quit or better her life, and it's taking it's toll on both of us.

As for direction in life, I've done a lot of thinking about who I am, and what things in the world interest me besides video games. Business seems to hold a lot in common with the competitive things I enjoy in video games. Perfection of execution, and creativity through strategy are rewarding things to love in the business world. Now it's perfectly possible that my interests may change, but I've resolved to register for the fall semester.

An M.B.A. seems the best goal in the field because of the significance of the gap in pay and opportunity between a bachelors and masters degree. So far the plan is to meet with a counselor to create a plan that goes all the way to graduate school. Having to backtrack to a CC or uni seems like a terrible waste of time, so I want to avoid such things if possible. A focus in entrepreneurship seems the most exciting, but it's dependability is still questionable in my mind. Have any of you had experience in the field? Do you have any advice?

To maintain my interest in the subject I downloaded all the issues of Harvard Business Review I could find, as well as any book from Harvard Press. This probably sounds a bit silly, but just reading about all things business fascinates me. Anyone have any suggestions on books to read? Or perhaps another publisher with quality releases?